Thursday, July 19, 2012

This is a long overdue post on Whole Vegetarian Restaurant. I'm guessing probably 90% of the vegetarian people in Vancouver know about this place already. It's been at the same location since forever. Well, it used to be Bo Kong Vegetarian Restaurant, which had another location in Richmond, but both of them closed down maybe a year or two ago and Whole Vegetarian Restaurant (Same owners as Whole Vegetarian Food Inc) took over. Their menu pretty much stayed the same. (From the rumors I've heard, it was something to do with increasing the lease so Bo Kong had to move out :P Bo Kong has now reopened at a new location tho, called Po Kong. I will post about it soon too)

We usually come here for dim sum now, there's just not that many veggie dim sum choices around town anymore, it makes me sad :( Anyways, the pics I took were from a dinner we had a while back. I will do another update next time I go there for dim sum again.

Lower right is one of my usual favourite dishes, Sizzling Chow Mein, if I have the craving for Cantonese style crispy noodles. It's slightly pricier than other crispy noodles on the menu because it's served on a hot iron plate. If you haven't had it before, it's a good choice to go with, but otherwise I think other crispy noodles are as good :) Middle top dish should be Bean Curd Skin Roll with Black Sauce.

I think this was Jai Combination, basically marinated bean curds :)

Another one of our usual favourite dishes - Tasty Fresh Shiitake Mushroom. I guess the name really doesn't tell much about the dish other than it's shiitake mushrooms :P It's basically deep fried shiitake mushrooms with sweet and sour flavour. It's really good, I recommend it.

I think this is an item from the clay pot section, might be Taro and Vegetarian Cutlet Hot pot. Sorry it's been a while I don't remember, but it was good I remember that.

This is from a couple weeks ago from one of the dim sum runs. I felt like congee that day, so I ordered the Enoki Mushrrom and Bean Curd Skin Congee. The large is about 5 bowls and small about 3, that's what the waiter told us when we asked about the size. It was so good we finished up right away and I decided to order another small Corn Congee because both my sister-in-law and niece enjoyed the congee a lot too. So I will hopefully have some more dim sum soon and have the updates up after :)

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Girls day out continues, after a few hours of shopping indoors, we headed outside for some refreshments and cold treats :) Frozen Yogurt time~

I always drive by or walk by here, but this is first time trying it out. Basically just follow the signs in the store - first get a cup, with or without waffle cone, then you move onto the frozen yogurt section where you can try out first with the small paper cups provided on the side. Each machine has 2 flavours, you can either have them separately or have them mixed.

After that, you go to the dry toppings section where all the kids go crazy on with candies, gummies, nuts, etc.

Then there's the wet toppings next to the dry ones. There's fruit and flavoured popping bobas and even sauces you can drip on top like chocolate, strawberry, peanut butter, etc.

Finally you head over to the cashier and weigh your cup and pay :)

I stayed off the toppings this time because I've picked enough mixed flavours of frozen yogurts. Some of them are pretty sweet, so it's nice to be able to try a little out before you decide to go with them. I think I will stick with one or two flavours and try on toppings next time. It's a little happy place with lots of smiling kids enjoying their sweets and frozen yogurts :)

Girls day out last Saturday, we started with brunch at Slickity Jim's Chat n' Chew :) One of my girl friends has been telling me about their portobello mushroom burger but I've never had a chance to try it out, and that was before their move after the fire incident. Now years (I think... already right?) later I'm finally here to try their food. We actually tried to do it once before but the wait was too long we gave up and went else where. This time, there's only three of us and we showed up around 11am. There were only about 4 people in front of us waiting. I didn't know you are supposed to put your name down on the chalkboard waiting list by the door. So I stood there for a while before I finally decided to ask the people in front of me if they were waiting too and they were nice enough to tell me to put my name down :P

I would say there is enough veggie stuff to pick from the breakfast/brunch menu. At least one or two items from each section. I was gonna get a veggie sandwich but stopped by my friend. We ended up picking three vegetarian omelettes to share. Still no portobello mushroom burger for me because it's on the dinner menu. I didn't really ask if they serve burgers in the morning though, but it was so hot that day I didn't really feel like eating a whole burger. The ventilation inside the restaurant didn't help either :( It was really hot, just happens that we picked one of the hottest days in Vancouver to eat here. No one else complained either. We even saw four big guys sitting in a small booth together, don't know how they did it :O

Jam

Olive my love

Cheesy fun guy

Veggie omelette

I had my omelette with potatoes, other two girls had salads, and we all had marble rye toasts. I finished mine and was very full but neither of them quite finished their plates. The portions are pretty good, the eggs might be a little bit on the dry side but overall not bad. We each had our own favourites I guess but being able to try all three was nice :) The service was pretty friendly too despite of the hotness and busyness. I know I would be back again to try the burger sometimes.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

My friend has been telling me about Cafe Salade de Fruits, this cute French cafe by his work, for a long time that I should go try it out with him. It's located on W7th Ave close to Granville Street, like 2 blocks away from his office. For some reasons I have this idea of that area being pretty deserted, but it is really not, lots of foot traffic and cute little restaurants and stores.

It's inside the French cultural center.

They are cash only by the way, so remember to bring cash :)

My friend told me this place is small and fills up fast so we have to be there early. We got there around noon, just right before the lunch crowd. By the time we got our food, the place was packed and the lineup outside was getting longer and longer. My friend really comes here all the time for lunch, as soon as the waiter saw my friend he said, "veggie sandwich to go?" The service is friendly even when it gets quite busy and I love his french accent, it's very cute :)

Not a big menu but they have a few vegetarian items on there.

Since my friend has been telling me how good their veggie sandwich is, that's exactly what I got - veggie sandwich with fries. No ketchup here :) Just mayonnaise~

Friend's veggie sandwich with salad.

I enjoyed my sandwich, it's got grilled veggies and brie and there is A LOT of fries... I couldn't finish even half of the fries, but they're very good too. I would like to come back and try out their other veggie stuff in the future for sure :)

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Beautiful Saturday morning my friend and I walked around Yaletown once again looking for a place for brunch. Last time we went to Milestones because we both like it and also it was one of the few restaurants with packed patios, which you just know it should be good :P It's funny to see a few patios filled up and others quite empty. People would rather wait for a seat than take a chance on the less busy places. We walked by Glowbal Grill and it was quite busy. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go there at first because even though I know Glowbal restaurants have good food, they are also not very vegetarian friendly as in not a lot of selections. Then I remembered a friend told me their french toast is really good, so I thought I would give it a try.

As soon as we set down, we were offered a small dim sum bucket of mini donuts! Good stuff :)

Then later on more free stuff - strawberry smoothie shots!

The thing about brunch is, for me anyways, there's always the sweet choices like waffles, french toasts and such, which I absolutely love, but it's so hard to commit on ordering a meal with just sweet stuff because if it's a meal, I want something salty in it too else it doesn't feel like a meal. I know I know, sorry but it's just in my Asian blood, can't help it... >_< This time though I had some food already earlier so I was confident enough to order something sweet with no regret. I enjoyed it a lot but it was so very sweet even for me. I could not finish the center at the end, I had to give up. My friend had to stop me too because my whole face was turning red from all the sugar.

My friend who always orders vegetarian meals when eating out with me almost had to settle for something non-veggie this time, partly because she's a picky eater but also because like I said, the vegetarian selection is not big. Good thing she felt like having eggs and she likes mushrooms, so she decided to just go with the mushroom frittata and to her surprise and mine too, she really liked it. She even liked the potatoes and salad, which she doesn't usually but she pretty much finished everything with a smile on her face. Overall we both enjoyed the food and the service was nice too :)

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Have been eating lots but haven't posted much lately... So this is again a while back when the sun was still in hiding. Totally loving the weather now :D I've been to East is East is quite a few times to get their regular hot chai with my friend who is very much hooked on it. This time we're here to try the food out.

When I called to make a reservation for 4 people, only times left were like 430 or after 8, so we went for a very early dinner. There's not a lot of sitting inside, but the atmosphere is great and the service is very friendly.

They have a very good menu of vegetarian/vegan selections. We ordered 2 veggie rice bowls, both saag paneer and 2 veggie roti rolls, one with eggplants and the other I forgot. We all enjoyed the food although the portions weren't very big. My friends had the silk route feast before and recommended it. I know I will be getting that next time I'm back here :P

We also ordered two yogurt lassies, mixed berries and mango. Good stuff :)

Thought I would take a pic of the bill so I remember what I ordered... but then it doesn't have all the details I need :(